Mass Screw Up
by NekoInAhat
Summary: If only someone hadn't touched the button. Now the Red's and Blue's are sent headlong into an intergalactic struggle of epic proportions none of them really wanted to get involved in. Can they actually help the crew of the Normandy stop Saren's evil plot or will they die trying? F!Shepard/Church Garrus/Caboose Simmons/Tali Doc/Saren and others.
1. Chapter 1

Church sighs as he looks at his semblance of a team if you could call it that. This time his team didn't just have Tucker, Caboose, and Tex, but the Reds as well. There was also Doc but he just seemed to be there for moral support unless O'Malley had somehow imprinted violent tendencies on him which was unlikely.

"We are so screwed." Church mumbles.

The ruin Church needed the team for is huge and doesn't seem to match the aliens usual style. There was probably a lot of treasure and information to be found in the ruins but that isn't what Church was there for. The reason was a lot stranger. As they enter the main control room Church walks to the console full of blinking lights and turns to face everyone.

"Okay, which one of you went in here and touched something?" Church asks.

"Wait, that's what you called us all here for in the middle of the night?" Simmons asks.

"Dude, you could have just asked us at camp." Tucker says putting his sword away.

"Yes this is why but some people," Church says looking at Caboose, "Won't know what I'm talking about unless it's right in front of their face. So who pressed a fucking button?"

Everyone looks around. Grif shrugs and Caboose just looks confused. Church groans and rubs his temples wondering what he did wrong to make him stuck with this bunch.

"Um... guys the light stopped blinking." Doc says.

"Well that's one problem resolved." Tex says.

"No, I mean it's just steady red now." Doc says.

"Oh shi-"

Everything bursts white but before Church's vision becomes completely useless he sees Caboose's trigger finger tighten. Church doesn't even get enough time to curse when ringing fills his vision and gravity tears his body down.

"So you're sure this ruin is active?" Shepard asks Liara.

"I am sure Shepard the readings are off the charts." The Prothean expert says.

"I have a bad feeling about this commander." Garrus says his hand wandering to his gun.

"We have to make sure we get to whatever is causing this before Saren. If this thing is a weapon we don't know what Saren might use it for."

"We should hurry." Liara says.

Shepard nods and pulls out her gun; her helmet blocking her expression from vision.

"Keep your radios open for any sign of geth activity." Shepard says.

"Will do."

Shepard can feel what Garrus was talking about. She was getting the same feeling she had gotten back before the Blitz. Something big was up and she had to stop it for the good of the universe. Shepard is broken from her paragon thoughts as the prothean ruin starts to shake.

Garrus stumbles and Shepard grabs onto a wall. Shepard rights herself and continues forward. That shake seemed to have come from the center of the building. Without any resistance from anything Shepard manages to not blow anything up on the way there. As the trio enters the main room a beam strikes the middle of the floor.

"-iiittt"

Shepard stumbles backwards as something breaks into her mind. It felt like when the beacon had sent her information but much less... ancient? Shepard gasps and lifts herself off the floor. Shepard looks around, her eyes settling on the mass of bodies left by the beam. Then she looks down and her shoulders slack.

"Aw hell I'm a chick." Shepard says angrily.

"Commander, are you alright?" Liara asks.

"Church?" A voice pipes up from the pile.

A human looking male pops up from the pile. He was wearing full body blue armor and had a yellow face shield. He walks over to the three not even minding the guns Liara and Garrus had trained on him.

"Church. Did you turn into a lady?" Caboose asks.

"No, Caboose. I just ghosted into this woman's body. I'll leave as soon as I can." Church says.

"What's going on?" Liara asks.

"I don't know Liara." Shepard's voice comes out calmer than it had been.

"Shepard?" Liara.

"Yes... and no..." Shepard says.

"What?" Garrus asks.

"I'm still in here." This time the voice sounds more like Church.

"Please be quite I'm trying to talk to my team." Shepard says.

"And I'm trying to talk to your team." Church says.

"I was here first."

"Yeah so it's my turn now."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"No."

"Yes."

"So we agree?"

"Shut up."

Garrus and Liara stare at Shepard as her voice fluctuates between the two voice patterns. Caboose is turned around staring at the decrepit hole in the ceiling that revealed the sky. Caboose's head tilts to the side. A groan comes from the pile of bodies and a purple helmet sticks up.

"Hey look they're dropping presents on us!" Caboose says happily.

"What?" Church and Shepard ask at the same time, "Stop copying me!"

Something hits the ceiling causing the room to shake and the ceiling collapse in. Three guns point to the cause of the collapse.

"Geth!" Shepard yells and ducks towards cover.

Liara quickly follows Shepard. Garrus groans when Caboose doesn't move. Garrus grabs the rookies shoulder and pulls him into cover. The Armature that collided with the ceiling stands up and charges a blast that hits close to the mass of still unconscious Reds and Blues. A shriek comes from the pile and a blur runs out of the room.

"What was that?" Liara asks.

"It kind of looked like Doc." Church says.

"I hope he can fight because it seems like there are a bunch of Geth that way." Garrus says.

Church chuckles from inside Shepard's head. Shepard shrugs and shoots the Armature with her assault rifle again. Garrus looks at Caboose and sees he's holding a perfectly fine looking sniper rifle but isn't using it.

"Can you shot that?" Garrus asks.

"Yes Mr. Kittenface." Caboose says standing up to shoot.

"No! Don't let Caboose use that!" Church yells.

A bullet barely misses Garrus' shoulder. He curses and snatches the sniper rifle from Caboose. Caboose looks down apologetically and mumbles an apology. Garrus sighs and hands him back the rifle.

"You can have it, just-just focus on the Geth."

-

"Why is this happening?!"

A purple armored man runs down a vine covered corridor bullets flying everywhere around him. For some reason robots were everywhere. After that huge explosion had startled him awake he had been running from robots. Robots with guns. Angry robots with super high tech laser guns. Doc almost wished O'Malley there with his rocket launcher. Doc immediately feels bad about that.

Doc shrieks again as a shot hits his armor. Now was not the time to feel bad about violent thoughts. He jumps over some rubble and thanks his track coach for pushing him to do hurdles. Doc notices a small pathway a little ways ahead. He could probably slip through and lose his robotic pursuers. Doc slides down against a wall as soon as he reaches a small room with no more of the robots in it.

Doc gives the room a quick scan. There was a weird pillar like this on the far wall but otherwise it was just about empty. Doc stands up to look at the pillar, maybe it would have some information about the current location. As Doc takes a step forward he hears a gun charging behind him. His foot stops mid-step and he raises his hands.

"Take off your helmet and turn to look at me, slowly." A male voice says.

Doc shakily unclips his helmet and takes it off before turning around. In front of him was an alien that was at least a head taller than him. The male was tall with skin in monotone colors. He looked terrifing to the medic. Doc couldn't help but shake in his boots.

"Who are you?" He asks.

"I-I-I'm F-frank D-defresne a-a medic." Doc stutters.

"Why are you here?"

"I-I-I don't kn-know. I-I j-just got tele-teleported here with t-the rest o-of my t-team."

"So you aren't with Shepard?"

"W-who's Shepard?"

"No one you will ever meet human." He says.

"A-ah. May I ask you're name?" Doc asks.

"No."

Doc stands there not knowing what to do. The alien signals Doc to sit by the wall. He walks over to the pillar and it lifts him off the ground. Doc watches amazed and then a gun shot breaks the mild silence.

"Saren!" A woman screams angrily.

There is gun fire from down the corridor. The alien, Saren, falls with blue blood leaking from his armor. Doc runs over racking his brain for knowledge on how to fix bullet wounds. CPR? No, that was for head shots. Saren groans and Doc looks worried. He notices a dispenser for something on the wall. He walks over and read 'Medi-gel'. It seemed be compatible with his medical gun thing.

Doc runs over to Saren and aims the gun at the bullet wound. Doc shuts his eyes and pulls the trigger. Saren groans again and sits up. He touches the hole in his armor then looks at Doc. Saren pushes Doc over. Doc blinks in confusion. Doc shrieks when a rocket blasts into the wall at the same height his head had been.

Saren stands up and grabs Doc. Doc wishes he had his helmet on because he really didn't want anyone seeing the raging blush on his cheeks as he feels his back flush against Saren's chest. Doc blinks as Saren carries him towards the door like that.

"Stand down Shepard unless you want a defenseless medic to get injured." Saren says.

Liara kind of wished she had stayed on the ship. As much as she loves Prothean technology the constant bickering between Shepard and Church was beginning to grate on her nerves. She wished she had found cover farther away from the two and now she couldn't leave because the Armature seemed hell bent on hitting her.

Liara sighs as more childish bickering comes from the duo. Liara stands up and biotic throws an explosive container at the Armature. Caboose gasps.

"The blue lady is a super hero!"

"No, she's a biotic." Garrus explains.

"... So she's a super hero!" Caboose says.

"Fine Caboose she's a super hero." Garrus sighs.

"We should call Joker to pick up all these people." Liara says.

Shepard nods and turns on her com to call Joker.

"Normandy this is Shepard we have something for you to pick up." Shepard says.

"Sorry Commander but we can't get in until you clear out some more of those geth." Joker says.

"Give us five minutes." Shepard says.

"This happens a lot, doesn't it?" Church asks.

"More often than you'd think." Garrus says while checking the pile for any newly conscious people.

Church nods and looks down the corridor. Shepard gestures for Liara and Garrus to follow her to clear out geth. There wasn't much left there since the energy spike must have just been from the group teleporting from whatever planet they're from. The corridor was empty of geth which was strange.

After a minute Shepard sees why the corridor had been so empty. All the geth were bottle-necked near a small passage which they didn't seem to want to go into or fire in. As soon as they hear Church's mumbled 'shit' they all turn. Everyone grabs cover and fires. After five minutes of almost none stop shooting Shepard stands up and goes to the passage. Shepard's eyes widen and she raises her assault rifle.

"Saren!" She shouts with fire in her eyes.

There was a startled gasp from down the passage and Shepard thought she saw some purple. She brushed it off as nothing and grabs her trusty rocket launcher, the thing every paragon talker needs, talking with a big stick and all that.

"Bow chika bow wow." Weakly comes from back down the hallway.

Shepard's brow furrows but she ignores it. She notices Caboose staring at the rocket launcher.

"Will you do the honors?" Shepard asks.

"Yes Ms. Nice Church!" Caboose says grabbing the rifle.

Caboose manages not to shoot anyone on his side of the passage. A less than manly shriek comes from down the passage. After a few moments Saren comes into view.

"Stand down Shepard unless you want a defenseless medic to get injured." Saren says.

"Doc, what did you do now?" Church asks.

"Church?" Doc asks confused, "Why are you a woman?"

"Long story, now shut up." Church says.

"I don't think that will be helpful to this situation." Doc says.

"It will just make everything a lot more pleasant." Church says.

"That's ru-" Saren's free hand covers Doc's mouth muffling the rest of his sentence.

"Shepard, times running out." Saren says tapping a pistol against Doc's brown hair.

Shepard grits her teeth. She couldn't just let Saren kill someone but if she let him go he would most likely wipe out all of humanity. Is the good of the many for one life an okay decision? If it was one of her own team would she be okay with taking Saren down? Did she really even want to take Saren down, really, that medic looked pretty good with Saren.

Shepard coughs into her hand. She really hoped no one suddenly developed mind reading abilities. Shepard holsters her weapon. Garrus looks at Shepard in disbelief.

"Shepard! What the hell are you thinking?" Garrus asks.

"We can't let anybody get killed." Shepard says.

"Saren will probably just kill him anyway." Garrus says.

"We have to trust in the power of PARAGON!" Shepard says with fierce determination.

"Um... the other kittyface took the bad doctor away." Caboose says.

"What!?" Shepard and Garrus scream.

Liara looks up from the pile of bodies as screaming comes from down the corridor. Liara rubs her temples hoping things would stop being so stressful soon.

TO BE CONTINUED dun dun dah  
What in the world am I doing actually posting this. Eh, whatever now have a Tildy ~ Also Saren seems to have around twenty arms while carrying Doc around.


	2. Rise Of The Pillar (Bow chika bow wow)

Chapter two- Rise Of The Pillar (bow chika bow wow)

"Bow chika wow wow."

"You wanted to say that through the entire story didn't you?" Church asks.

"Dude, you said you were IN a chick through the whole thing." Tucker says.

"THAT is what you got out of it?" Shepard asks massaging the bridge of her nose.

"That's all I got. Church got hooked up and Doc became a space hooker." Grif says.

"Grif, I don't think that's what happened." Simmons says.

"Really? I thought I heard the space hooker part." Donut says.

Liara sighs at the interaction between everyone. She really didn't have time for all this, she had reports to finish. At least they had secured the beacon.

"Shepard, I need some help recallibrating the driver coils." A black and purple suited woman says.

"Why can't you ask anyone in engineering, Tali?" Shepard asks.

"I said I'd take care of this myself but I don't have the height or upperbody strength to reach all of the parts. I can't ask anyone anyone else because Garrus is busy and no one else has the knowledge of quantom mechanics or driver coils." Tali says.

"I'll help." Simmons says immediatly jumping up.

"You must be one of the new arrivals." Tali says.

"Yeah, so driver coils?" Simmons says walking over to Tali.

"It seems like something overloaded the output." Tali says.

"Something like that happened before to the Warthog." Simmons says.

"I didn't know earth animals had driver coils!" Tali says excitedly.

"The Warthog is our jeep. We just nicknamed it that it isn't an actual warthog."

"That makes more sense but it would have been pretty cool if warthogs did have driver coils." Tali says with a smile in her voice.

"Why are you wearing a face cover inside?" Simmons asks as they walk down the hallway.

"I'm a Quarian. If we are exposed to the usual air you breath it makes us sick." Tali explains as they enter the elevator.

Simmons nods and shifts on his feet. Tali was really cute and knew mechanics which was awesome. Tali stands completely motionless in the elevator while Simmons kind of shifts and looks around. It was kind of unnerving how still Tali was right then.

"So, how's life in a space ship?" Simmons asks.

"I've always lived on ships. Not like the Normandy. Almost all Quarian's live on the Flotilla since the geth took over our homeworld." Tali says.

"The geth took over your homeworld?" Simmons asks surprised.

"Yes, three hundred years ago. We were the ones who created them."

As the elevator stops Tali starts moving again. Simmons wonders if Tali is afraid of elevators or if it's like everyone's helmet bobble quirk. Either way it wasn't that important. He had a cute girl to help with some driver coils.

-

Doc blinks as he sits on a small space craft next to Saren. The last two minutes and fourteen seconds had flown by since Saren had ran away from Shepard. She must be a very terrifing woman for Saren to sprint that fast. Saren would probably get mad if he asked the Turian about it. Doc shifts in his seat, it was getting kind of boring.

Saren's gaze shifts towards the medic as he moves. Doc immediatly stiffens under Saren's harsh gaze. Geez he sounded like herione of a cheesy romance novel. Not that he knew romance novels that well or anything.

Doc coughs into his hand ignoring the romance novel train of thought. Doc wonders if anyone really cared that he was kidnapped by the enemy or if they were just doing the stuff the normally did. Doc immediatly dreads the fate of humanity. If that Shepard woman had Church in her head there was no way she was going to get anything done. Or more hopefully Shepard would be a possitive influence on him.

Doc smiles and nods. That was definitly it. Shepard definitly seemed the type to be able to get things done. There was no way Church could mess that up. Church was a pretty good leader. Now if Saren would just become a good guy, maybe Doc would make more progress than he has with O'Malley. O'Malley was more violent then the grouchy Saren.

Doc is broken from his thought when he sees a giant space ship. That most likely would be where Saren was heading. The ship looked about as terrifing as the Turian next to him does. Doc really hopes this time being a hostage will be better than his last times. It would be nice to be treated well for once but what were the chances of that?

-

Shepard stands infront of the holigram of the three council members. The Turian council member looks dissaprovingly at Shepard. The Asari Councilor coughs.

"You have done a great job Shepard but this new revelation of diminsion traveling humans? It's a little far fetched." The Asari Councilor says.

"It's about as far fetched as anything we do." Church says from inside Shepard.

"Church! I told you to stay quite!" Shepard says startled.

"Church?" The Salarian Councilor asks.

"I'm one of the 'Diminsion traveling humans' also, I'm a ghost. Boo bitches." Church says.

"A ghost? That is just mythology." The Turian Councilor says.

"Well, your staring at mythology." Church says.

The three councilors stare at Church their mouths in lines. Shepard coughs awkwardly. This was going down hill fast.

"That was by far the worst come back I could ever think of being consevied." The Salarian Councilor says.

"Anyway Shepard, did you stop to think these people could be spies for Saren?" The Asari councilor asks.

Church snorts, "Have you seen my people? We suck. Besides Saren KIDNAPPED our medic."

"It could have been a cover up so we wouldn't suspect you." The Turian councilor says.

Before anyone could say anything else Caboose runs in. Part of his blond hair is slightly singed and half his shirt is burned off. The man himself isn't hurt just some cosmetic soot spackling.

"Ms. Nice Church someone, I don't know who, tried using the shiny, soft metal stuff to make cookies, because they thought it would turn the cookies shiny and soft, and they may have, blown up an oven." Caboose says shifting angstily.

Shepard gasps when she sees Caboose and trots over her hands rushing to his shoulders and looking him over for any damage.

"Oh my God Caboose! Are you hurt? Why did Garrus stop watching you!? I'm going to have a stern talking with that man." Shepard says the last part to herself.

"Wow Shepard. No need to kill anyone." Church chuckles.

"Garrus nearly let Caboose blow himself-"

"Bow chika bow wow." Tucker says walking past the door.

"Shut up Tucker!" Shepared yells then coughs, "Anyway, and half the ship up. Also he left the Element Zero out where it might be dangerous!"

The three council members stare blankly at the madness going on before them. Tucker comes in and starts making bad jokes and laughing at Caboose and the enraged commander while Caboose stands confused. Somehow Sarge makes his way inside and just starts screaming because he can. The Asari councilar turns to look at the Turian councilar in confusion.

"Looks like it's time for Officer Hotpants to split up this mob!" A voice says from down the hallway.

"Run, Shepard run!" Church yells making Shepard run out of the room.

"Meetings over!" Shepard manages to get in.

Everyone dispurses in a matter of seconds. The three councilors stare moritified as a human male walks in wearing a very revealing, most likely originally designed for a female, police officer coustum. Complete with hot pants.

"Turn off the holigram!" The Turian councilar screams.

"Come on! You know you like it!" Donut says smiling.

-

"So you aim for the face on just about every species." Tex says nodding.

"Yeah, most species are pretty squishy though so with Asari, Salarians, and humans are pretty okay to just shoot anywhere. Quarians get a bit tougher, than Turians, and then Krogans. Krogan can also regenrate pretty quickly." Garrus explains.

"So anything else I should know?" Tex asks.

"When going against armor fire is generally a very good idea." Garrus says.

"Incideary rounds?" Tex asks.

"You bet." Garrus says.

"Now that I've got the basics I should be all set." Tex says.

"GARRUS GET YOUR ASS TO THE MEETING ROOM!" Shepards voice booms through the comm system.

"Oh no, looks like you're in trouble." Tex says snickering.

Garrus grumbles and stands up, trudging away. Hopefully this wasn't anything big, it probably was, this is Shepard we're talking about. Garrus sighs as he walks up the stairs and goes into the confrence room. Shepard stands tapping her foot angrily. Garrus gasps as he sees a soot covered Caboose with singed hair and clothes.

"What happened?!" Garrus asks Caboose.

"The cookies went boom." Caboose says sadly.

"Why did you leave him alone?" Shepard says with false calm.

"I- uh- I didn't think Caboose needed constant supervison." Garrus says shakily.

"This is CABOOSE Garrus. I didn't think you had to read the kid's autobiography to figure out he's kind of slow." Church says angrily.

"I think I can run just fine thank you very much." Caboose says pouting.

"Not that kind of slow. Church didn't mean to insult you. How about after dinner I teach you an old chocolate chip cookie recipe I got from my mom before she was massacred by slavers with the everyone else I loved?" Shepard says her face getting darker and darker with every word.

"You are starting to scare me." Caboose says stepping back.

"Sorry Caboose. Would you like to make cookies later?" Shepard asks coughing.

"Yes!" Caboose says.

"Back on the alien guy. Why the hell did you let Caboose get ahold of toxic chemicals?" Church asks.

"I didn't let him." Garrus says.

"So how did he make the oven explode? Hellium?" Shepard asks.

"I didn't think it was my responsiblity." Garrus says.

"Okay! Team building excercise. We are going to Zhu's Hope and we are going to become stronger as a family." Shepard says slamming her hand on a nearby table, "If anyone has a problem they can file it with Officer Hotpants."

"Officer what now?" Garrus asks.

"Don't ask... don't tell." Church says.

"Bad joke Church." Shepard says walking past Garrus.

-

Saren calmly eats his food as Doc fidgets across the table. Doc looks down at the obviously meat based soup in front of him. There was no way he could eat it but he was starving. Doc shifts in his seat biting his lip. What could he do? It was highly unlikley Saren would give him something else.

"Do you not like Thresher Maw soup?" Saren asks calmly.

"I'm a vegetarian." Doc says just over a whisper.

"A human who swears off meat?" Saren asks.

Doc nods and Saren nods as well.

"Can you eat your planets sea food? Shrimp and lobster? Bugs like that?" Saren asks.

"No, they have feelings too." Doc says.

Saren sighs and looks at his plate. He grabs Doc's bowl and switches it with his plate after removing what was left of the meat based food on it. Doc blinks. This was rather strange. He was used to O'Malley telling him to stop being a pansy. Maybe this was a weird form of torture. Doc eats his food in silence.

"Where am I going to sleep?" Doc asks suddenly.

"In my quarters." Saren says simply.

Doc turns into a flustered mess and starts internally flailing his arms. That was completely inappropriate! Hostages are supposed to stay in prison cells or somewhere not near attractive aliens.

"It's to make sure you can't escape." Saren says staring at the flustered brunette.

Doc coughs and blushes as he tries to hid his face by tilting his head down. Saren smirks at the medics antics. It was defenitly a good idea to go against orders and take Defresne with him.

TO BE CONTINUED  
So ships gallore starting here. From now on it's smooth sailing. Sorry that was bad, anyway, live long and prosper. Also BLAARGH! Why must my mother interupt me while I am writing? Also, why do I keep writing Caboose like a four year old girl? Seriously, I feel like I should be writing 'desu' after all of his sentences and it doesn't seem to get any better. Also thank you for the reviews :)


	3. Who's Hope? (Is she hot?)

Chapter Three- Who's Hope? (Is she hot?)

Church watches the body in the mirror move. Shepard wasn't really watching anything as she went through her general pre-mission ritual of yoga and some brief meditation. It was different to see the commander out of her usual heavy armor. Shepard stands up stretching her fingers towards the ceiling before bending backwards into a bridge. Church never really knew how relaxing yoga was. Shepard wasn't half as tense as she had been after leaving Garrus to get ready for the Zhu's Hope mission.

Shepard stands up exhaling deeply. She grabs the water bottle off of her nightstand and takes a long drink. Church holigrams to stand near Shepard in miniture form. The first time he had done that she had been relativly startled but she had gotten over that pretty quickly.

"So what is this mission about?" Church asks.

"For some reason Saren targeted this colony and we need to find out why." Shepard says leaning against her desk.

Church nods and leans next to her. It was pretty much just a force of habit since he couldn't actually touch the desk. Shepard looks at the ceiling for a few seconds before pushing herself away from the desk. Shepard clips on her armor and turns towards Church.

"We'll be arriving soon." Shepard says, "I'm going to eat something before we go. Do you want to come with?"

"Sure, I hear the food has tasted great lately." Church says going back to being a voice in Shepard's head.

"Don't get snipy I thought to invite you didn't I?" Shepard says.

"You act like I can choose not to." Church says snorting.

"This family is falling apart." Shepard says sniffling.

Church sighs as they walk into the elevator. Fucking elevators.

-

Caboose shifts from foot to foot as Shepard approachs the small group that had come form the colony to greet them. Caboose looks at Garrus, A.K.A. Mr. Kittenface, and smiles at him which is a pretty empty gesture since his usual blue helmet is on. Garrus somehow gets the message and gives Caboose a slight smile. Caboose's smile widens and he just starts rolling on the balls of his feet. Garrus chuckles and shakes his head as he turns his head back towards Shepard.

"Go talk to Fai Dan." The colonist says to Shepard.

Shepard nods and the party walk past the guards. Shepard stops as a bullet flies past her head. Everyone dives behind crates.

"Geth!" Shepard yells.

Shepard leaps over the cover her right hand swing her hand gun up and firing one shot right into the face of a Geth Trooper. Shepard lands and crouches firing a few more rounds into an oncoming Geth. Shepard charges forward and pistol whips a Geth and shots it as it falls. Shepard leans to her left to shoot another Geth, Church's voice echoing in her head telling her where the enemy is. A bullet grazes past her hair and hits a Geth that was about to fire a rocket at the brown haired commander. Garrus nods towards Shepard and she nods back before pulling out her shotgun to plow through more synthetics.

"This is a lot easier than it usually is." Shepard says as she destorys another geth.

"Maybe being possessed by a ghost increases combat skills." Church says nonchalontly.

Shepard shrugs as she tosses a grenade at a cluster of Geth. Shepard was probably at the same level of skill as Tex which made Church feel pretty sure that Shepard would beat that Saren guy. Geez, could he have gotten a girlier name?

Shepard spins her shot gun before placing it back in it's holster on her back. She turns around and waits for Garrus and Caboose to handle the last few misselanous Geth. That had been a fairly large swarm for the beginning of a mission, probably meant a lot more problems ahead.

Or it could just be a fluke and the Geth just desided to try killing them right as they arrived instead of clustering near the objective like they usually did. That would be nice, then Caboose wouldn't have anything left to shoot Church with... Caboose would probably figure out a way. That was kind of a mean thing to say about Caboose. Shepard rolls her neck and keeps walking forward. Morality discussions and saying all Caboose wants to do is kill Church could wait until after the mission. Now was killin' time.

-

The trio... err quartet, walk through the colony. One woman messes with a large pipe murmuring something about water not flowing properly and another seems to be trying to get elecrticity on line. They walk through a long hallway and finally they reach where a dark haired man and woman stand talking. Shepard walks over and the man greets her first.

"Oh, Commander. I'm glad they finally sent somebody to help us."

"You're a little late aren't you." The woman says, the stress and exhaustion evident on her face.

"Arcelia!" Fai Dan says crossly before turning back to Shepard, "Sorry, Commander. Everyone's on edge since-"

"Watch out!" Arcelia shouts, "We've got Geth in the tower."

"Protect the heart of the colony!" Fai Dan says stepping away form the enterce to the towers.

Shepard pulls out her assualt rifle and marches to the towers enternce. Garrus and Caboose flank Shepard and walk beside her. The geth are quickly dispanded and the group ends up in a large cresant shaped room with a high ceiling. Shepard looks around slightly confused.

"Does anyone know where the way back is?" Shepard asks looking around.

"Oh! Oh! I know!" Caboose says raising his hand and bouncing.

"Lead the way." Garrus says gesturing Caboose forward.

The chipper Blue leads away. As they reach an intersection by an elevator they turn left and walk down some stairs. After a minute Shepard had a sinking feeling Caboose really didn't know where he was going. Especially with how at every turn Caboose seemed to be turning his helmet like he was doing 'Eenie-meenie minnie moe' to decide where to go. Shepard sighs and speeds up to walk beside Caboose.

"Caboose, are we lost?" Shepard asks calmly.

"Um, no." Caboose says looking stiffly ahead.

"God damn it Caboose!" Church yells.

Garrus sighs and Church, controlling Shepards legs, walks ahead guiding everyone... further into the tunnels. This, as it turns out, is not the brightest idea. They manage to walk into at least twenty-five geth but they did manage to fix the water problem. When they turn into a new room Garrus gets a bad feeling.

A dog like creature runs towards them, it's teeth barred and growling. Shepard fires the first shot and Church cusses. They quickly take out all the varren, including the Alpha varren. Caboose crouchs down besides one and sighs.

"I kind of wanted to keep one. They were so cute and fluffy." Caboose says sadly.

"Caboose, they don't have any hair." Church says next to a crashed ship.

"Things don't have to have hair to be fluffy." Caboose grumbles back.

"That's the definition of fluffy." Church says rolling his eyes.

Everyone leaves and they run into a slighly disturbed man and fight more geth. With some more fighting they take down a transmiter and after well over thirty minutes of running around like chickens with their heads cut off and accuratly deducing while the fighting machine known as Ghost powered Shepard can kick serious geth booty it makes all of Shepard's sense of direction take an all expense trip out of Shepard's head, and since Caboose just doesn't pay attention to that kind of thing Garrus is sadled with the wonderous job of navigator and they manage to make it back to Fai Dan and Zhu's Hope.

"The tower is secure. Thanks to you, Commander." Fai Dan says nodding his head to her.

"I'm just glad your colony is safe." Shepard says with a smile.

"No thanks to Caboose's sense of direction." Church grumbles.

"...I appreciate your concern... and your efforts against the Geth." Fai Dan says.

"They may have been slowed but they'll be back. They always come back." Arcelia says pessimistially.

"Help me find what the geth are after and you'll all get out of here alive." Shepard says.

"We don't know what they're after. They came, they attacked us. That's all we know. Their main base is at the ExoGeni headquarters. A good place to start looking if you want answers." Fai Dan says.

Shepard nods and runs around the colony talking to everyone and getting rewards for all the stuff they completed in the tunnels. After some more brief lack of directional knowledge troubles they make it to the Mako.

"It's Mako time." Shepard says rolling her neck grinning.

"May I drive?" Caboose asks.

"When you're older I'll pass this baby onto you Caboose." Shepard says patting the side of the six wheeled vehicle.

"Yay!" Caboose says throwing his arms up.

"Now get in; we ride tonight!" Shepard says jumping inside and firing up the engine.

Shepard quickly slips a CD into the onboard stereo and some pop-ish sounding beat comes out of the speakers. Shepard cackles as she shifts the gear and slams her foot on the gas. Caboose falls over into Garrus' lap as Shepard makes a sharp turn avoiding Geth fire.

"Hi!" Caboose says turning to look up at Garrus.

"Hi." Garrus says back as the rookie just continues to use his lap as a pillow.

Shepard makes a jump and a small explosion makes the Mako rumble but no damage was taken. The main gun starts firing and Shepard laughs as she drives straight at the Geth Armature's firing at them. The Mako jerks as they slam into one of the Armatures. Shepard continues to drive and the crazed woman hits the large Geth straight off the road.

The other Armature has stood up and fired a shot at them. Shepard laughs backing up and running it over again. She switches gears forward and runs it over again. She keeps doing that while singing along to the song.

"I'd rather eat Randy! I'd rather eat Randyyy!" Shepard bascially screams along.

"Is she always like this when she drives?" Church asks.

"Just about." Garrus says holding onto the unbuckled Caboose.

"Die Geth DIEEEEE!" Shepard shrieks running over all the Geth in their way.

"Are we going to die?" Caboose asks looking up at Garrus.

"Highly unlikely." Garrus says, "I would have died a long time ago if her driving could kill the people in the vehicle."

Caboose nods before settling down and humming alone to the song Shepard is singing along to. Shepard turns off the music as they enter a tunnel sort of place. There was radio activity and someone was talking about a 'Lizbeth' who another person thought was already dead. Shepard stops the Mako as they near the location of the radio signal. They run out and creep down the path downwards where voices could be heard bickering.

"That's close enough!" A man shouts signalling towards the guards.

"Relaz, Jeong. They're obviously not geth." A much calmer woman says.

"Get back, Juliana." The man, Jeong, says, "Who are you? What do you want?"

"I am Commander Shepard of the Normandy. We are here to help." Shepard says.

"And get lost." Church says off handedly.

"You see? You worry too much." Juliana says to Jeong.

"And you trust too easily, Juliana." Jeong says looking cautiously at the group.

"I'm just glad to see a friendly face. I thought we were the only humans left on this planet." Juliana says smiling.

"Whose Hope is still full of nice people!" Caboose says happily.

"I thought you said they were all dead." Juliana says after a second of deciphering the language of Caboose.

"I said they were 'probably' all dead." Jeong says looking away from the woman.

"They're alive but we need to take care of the geth as soon as possible." Shepard says.

"We know what that's like. Those damn synthetics are relentless." Juliana says.

"Any information you have regarding why the Geth could be attacking could help us emmenstly." Shepard says.

"What kind of information?" Jeong says quickly.

"Ignore him. The geth are in the ExoGeni headquarters. Just a bit further along the skyway." Juliana says gesturing.

"Those headquarters are private property, soldier. Remove the geth and nothing else." Jeong says pointing at Shepards sternum.

"We will do what is necessary." Shepard says.

"Commander, before you go... My daughter, Lizbeth. She's missing.." Juliana says her voice cutting off.

"They shouldn't waste time poking around." Jeong says, "We can do a proper accounting of our casulalties after the geth are gone."

"That's my daughter you're talking about! She's still alive. I know it." Juliana says offended.

"We'll make sure to look EVERYWHERE for her." Church says trying to piss Jeong off.

"Thank you." Juliana says.

After a quick runaround for more information and aquiring another little quest they head back out to set off on their journey of exploration. Caboose starts dragging his feet as they get closer to the Mako. Garrus looks at him curiously.

"Do you want to get left behind?" Garrus asks.

"I don't want to get tossed around again." Caboose says simply.

"You could wear a seat belt this time." Garrus comments.

"What's a seat belt?" Caboose asks.

"I'll show you once we get in." Garrus says motioning for Caboose to follow him.

-

Grif stares at his hand of cards.

6 of hearts, seven of clubs, eight of diamonds, king of spades, ace of hearts, queen of diamonds, jack of spades, two of clubs, three of diamonds, and four of clubs.

Grif offically hates Go Fish. Simmons was sitting across from the tan man, Simmons pile of pairs much larger than his. The dutch-irish man was talking excitedly with Tali, her pile quadruple the size of Grif's.

"Simmons, got any eights?" Grif asks.

"Go fish." Simmons says before going back to rambling with Tali about warp drives or something.

As Grif looks at the next card and nearly groans. It was a nine of diamonds this time.

"Do you have any eights, Grif?" Dr. Chakwas asks.

"Fuck this, this is too much work." Grif says setting his hand down and standing up.

"Bye Grif!" Tali says waving happily.

Grif grunts as he walks away. Dr. Chakwas quickly grabs all Grif's cards and starts making matches with the few she currently had. Simmons complains about it not being fair but decides it isn't worth the fuss. Grif continues as their voices fade and he enters the elevator pressing the button down to the cargo bay. He leans against the wall as the elevator starts it's decent.

When the elevator stops Grif pushes away from the wall and walks over towards his usually napping wall. The one good thing about being on the ship was that carge couldn't force him to do work, mostly because he could never find him.

As Grif reaches his usual spot, the beacon recovered from the planet they had been on sat against the wall. He usually took naps by it. Grif sits down and leans against the beacon before noticing that there was some dried on blue stuff covering some of the symbols. Some little OCD part of Grif made him want to wipe it off. As he touches the beacon to remove the blue gunk he barely starts to notice the blue glow the beacon had taken.

"Shit!" Grif yells as he feels his feet leave the ground.

Grif feels someone grab him by the back of his shirt and throw him to the side. Grif grunts as he lands and his left arm is crushed between the floor and his body. The brunette lifts himself up and stares as one of the robots they first say was lifted up by the blue light force from the beacon. The robot starts convulsing and starts to spark.

Grif covers his face with his arms as the geth explodes. After the explosion stops Grof moves his arms to see what happened. Grif shouts as he sees a geth standing over him. The geth falls over, debrie from the other geth exploding had torn apart it's circutry.

In a state of shock Grif barely noticed another geth walk in and grab the beacon. Another one swings a fist down to knock the red soldier out before dragging him away.

TO BE CONTINUED  
So Grif can't catch a break but Simmons and Tali are getting along swimmingly. Also, *insert uniteligable noises of distane* ONLY HALF DONE WITH THE ZHU'S HOPE MISSION! There are so many things I want to write after this mission but I can't! Stupid Zhu's Hope mission. Oh well, at least I got to write about the Mako. Also the part about them getting lost, true story. The first three times (God, I have no life) I played this mission I always got lost. Also with the reviews in response to the reviews I got, I love you all, the Warthog shall have it's moment of glory, and with the Red vs Blue villains you shall see, you shall see mwahaha.


	4. In Which Hot Dates Are Planned

Chapter Four- In Which Hot Dates Are Planned And There Is Minor Plot Progression.

Caboose sits happily next to Garrus the newly discovered seatbelt firmly buckled around him. Caboose watches as Shepard's expression changes in various ways, it was pretty evident when Church had facial control because of the 'Oh Shit' expression he would get. After the destruction of many geth they finally reach ExoGeni headquarters.

Shepard sighs as she gets out of the Mako. She pats the side and looks at the thin opening to get into the ExoGeni headquarters.

"Sorry old pal but you can't follow us here." Shepard says shaking her head sadly.

"I'm happy to be out of that death trap." Church says unhappily.

"Don't speak that way about him!" Shepard says horrified.

"It's a fucking car! It doesn't have feelings!" Church yells.

"Blasphemy!" Shepard yells.

Church grumbles under his ghost breath and Shepard walks towards the building. Garrus shrugs and follows and Caboose just follows Garrus. Even before they enter the building Geth start firing shots at them. The few Geth inside were easily handled and soon they were walking to check out a little door across the room. Garrus quickly hacks the lock and it slides open.

Shepard leads the way in and starts to look over the crate inside. Caboose's gaze wavers to the inactive Geth Armature sitting on the floor. Caboose shifts his feet. Shepard starts to walk out and the thing leaps online and starts firing a blast.

"Shit!" Church yells as the blast flies to his left.

Shepard dodges into the hallway just out of sight of the Armature and pulls Caboose next to her. As another shot goes off Shepard runs forward and fires shots in the giant geth's face.

"Garrus! Use sabotage!" Shepard says.

"What, is he a Pokemon now?" Church snorts.

"Be quiet." Shepard says as the Geth's weapons are rendered inactive and she can stands there shooting it.

After a while of mindless shooting the geth is destroyed and they can leave. They explore a little while longer searching for anything useful before going towards the one way forward, a giant gapping hole in the floor.

"It's one way, are you ready Shepard?" Garrus asks.

"As ready as I'll ever be." Shepard says jumping down.

-

"I would really prefer you stop hitting on me, all your innuendos are frankly making me uncomfortable." Liara says trying to stay calm as she addressed Tucker.

"You're just playing hard to get. No one can resist this piece of manly hunk." Tucker says winking at Liara.

"I could castrate him for you." Tex says, "Hey, I might not even charge you for it."

"That's cold Tex." Tucker says trying to discretely cross his legs.

"I'd rather he just leave my room. Why are we all in my quarters?" Liara asks looking at the two other occupants.

"Because otherwise Joker kept interrupting everyone." Donut says cheerily from Liara's bed.

The three other people stare at the newly discovered fourth party member. At least he wasn't dressed as Officer Hotpants now. That was a sight Liara was happy she hadn't seen, or maybe she wasn't happy Donut seemed to have a pretty nice rump. Maybe she could scare Tucker out using Donut... hmm...

Liara is broken from her musings by Tucker's insentient hitting on every female in the room. It really made her miss her time studying the Prothean ruins. At least not everyone was so bad, Tex made nice company and Simmons seemed to be making Tali very happy.

"Tex, nothing can resist the Tucker-charm." Tucker says cockily.

"I can think of several things that can." Tex snorts.

"How about we make a bet about this! It could be so fun!" Donut says.

"I agree with Donut." Liara says with a smile.

Tucker thinks for a moment before smirking, "I'll accept once I know what I'll win or I'll lose."

"What do you want to win?" Liara asks spinning her chair so she was facing both Tucker and Tex.

Tucker thinks for a moment before looking between the two women, "I win I get to video tape you and Tex making out for five minutes, bow chika bow wow."

Tex rolls her eyes and goes to cleaning her hand gun. Liara looks towards the ceiling to find an adequate penalty. Something embarrassing that would put Tucker in his place. It was kind of difficult coming up with this so fast.

"Everyone you've hit on gets to punch you in the balls?" Tex offers.

"I guess that's okay. That is the penalty." Liara says with a nod.

"Okay, so whose the lucky lady I get to woo." Tucker says.

"So we are agreed?" Liara asks.

"Shake on it." Tucker says before shaking the Asari's hand.

"The GUY is Joker. It would be nice to get back at Joker." Tex says reholstering her pistol.

"NO!" Tucker howls.

"Then I guess I get to punch you in the nuts." Tex says standing up.

"Fine! Jesus." Tucker says raising his hands, "How hard can this be?"

-

The walk through the hallways was quite, it was a little off putting for Shepard. Usually it was loud and stuff was blowing up. Now even Caboose was quite, how in the world could they have a bonding family experience with no explosions?

Shepard is broken from her thoughts by a bullet whizzing by her head. Church pulls out her assault rifle for her and points it in the direction the bullet had come from.

"Damn it!" A woman with dark hair holding a pistol says before noticing the group wasn't geth, "I'm so sorry. I thought you were geth, or one of those varren."

"Are you alright? How did you get trapped here?" Shepard asks reholstering her assault rifle.

"It's my fault. Everyone else was running and I stayed to back up data. Next thing I knew, the geth ship latched on and the power went out. I was trapped. I tried to get out, but the way was blocked."

"We took care of the geth out front and most of them on the skyway." Shepard says, being main diplomat of this section of speech.

"It's not the geth; it's the energy field they put up. They don't want anyone else getting access to the-"

"If it will help us figure out why the geth are here, even in the slightest bit, it may help us save many lives." Shepard says.

"I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing they're here for the Thorian."

"What's a Thorian?" Church asks, mostly towards Shepard.

"It's an indigenous life-form. ExoGeni was studying it." The woman says.

"Are you Lizbeth?" Shepard asks.

"Yes, did my mother send you?" The woman asks surprised.

"She did ask us to search for you, do you think you can escape once we get the shield down?" Shepard asks.

"I might be able to, but not with those geth crawling around everywhere." Lizbeth says.

Shepard nods, "Then you can leave with us."

The trio leaves to figure out how to disable the shield blocking their exit. The conversations they had just kept on getting choppier and choppier the farther into the mission they got, maybe it was just Shepard getting tired. Shepard sighs as they walk up to go fight more Geth and save the day. Maybe a nice time skip while they disabled the field would be in order.

-

Tucker was up a river without a paddle on how to hit on Joker. Seriously how would he hit on a guy? Did you hit on one like you do when hitting on women? Crap this was going to be difficult, but is there a living being that can resist Tucker's indisputable charm?

Tucker forces himself from his thoughts as he approaches the pilot's chair. Joker didn't seem to be doing any serious piloting, just flipping through a magazine. He wasn't too unattractive, not really Tucker's type but Tucker just defined his type by any breathing thing without male genitalia. Tucker didn't even know where to begin talking to Joker.

"Oh, hi Tucker. How are you doing?" Joker asks civilly.

"I-um..." Tucker stutters, mission abort mission abort, main conversation drivers failing, abort abort.

"So I hear you somehow fell in a hole and got an alien species holy sword key. The whole thing sounded pretty vague, care to clear the mess of information Caboose threw at me?" Joker asks.

"Ah..." You are a fucking idiot, Tucker. This is why the last time you got laid you got impregnated by an alien that only spoke in 'honk's and 'blargh's.

"How about over some food in the mess hall. I heard Kaiden's cooking tonight so the food will be good." Joker offers.

Tucker stop making voices in your head that sound like Church and except the god damned invite. This will take you like five minutes and then you can watch hot interspecies lesbian make out sessions. Really, you can at least nod idiot.

"How about at six?" Joker says after waiting for Tucker to reply for two minutes, Tucker stiffly nods. "Well that's great to know! Meet you at six, I'll have the food out and don't be late."

Well that was ridiculously easy. Either something was up, Joker went gay for Tucker's charm, or Joker was really friendly.

-

"I hate fucking time skips." Church says as they drive back towards Zhu's Hope, anti-thorian grenades in belt and Lizbeth back with her mother.

"Shush, at least we're almost done with this mission." Shepard says.

"Yeah, I keep thinking Garrus and Caboose are going to jump each other back there. Not an image I want in my head." Church shivers.

"It's sweet." Shepard says forcing a smile.

"It's fucking disturbing. The moron and the nerd are the one's to actual score relationships AND Simmons managed to start dating Tali in less than a day! This is one screwed up universe." Church rants.

"Church, please, I don't think anyone wants to hear our banter." Shepard says.

"Fuck this." Church says going silent.

Shepard sighs and looks back at the cuddling blue armored soldiers behind her. It was sweet, Church was just being ridiculous again. How in the universe could that much cuteness be disturbing?

Shepard was so busy in her musings she almost ran into the door to get back to Zhu's Hope. Shepard sighs and they all exit. Shepard draws out her gun as the door opens and at least twenty Thorian creepers come rushing forward. They quartet fights forward bullets blasting everywhere and Shepard threw a grenade at the mind controlled colonists.

The fight was rough all the way through Zhu's Hope but eventually all threats were neutralized and they could finally reach the Thorian. The trailer blocking their way was removed and Shepard led the way down the stairs. They winded down and down until they finally reached the bottom and where face to fac-well roots really with the Thorian.

A/R (Author's Rant): AAAAANNNNDDDD This mission is still not done because I think it would be funnier like this. All my thoughts are being mentally narrated by Michael from Rage Quit so yeah, my thoughts want me to act like a tool. So next time we see the Thorian woohoo! Also Tucker can't hit on Joker, probably because Joker has too much swag. Then to question time or hint time with a sprinkling of spoilers, the baddie (sorry singular in this instance unless someone really wants to see someone my mind is forgetting about that isn't already needed for something else, future plot twists!) clue is- cock-blocking AI. Think about it, it will come to you. Sister, Washington, and Lopez are going to come in on a later date, the order by my estimation will be Lopez, Washington, and then Sister a couple chapters after Wash. I already have planned out how to get the Warthog in and Junior as well. We are making this happen! Also before I forget I want to know if there are any missions you would really like to see in this story, or characters not yet mentioned. I might be able to fit them in (remember the mentions of future plot twists) but no promises. Also I am ridiculously depressed by how short this is. Also I have around thirty-five scenes planned out for this, which is give or take four scenes a chapter. So I have over eight chapters left of this. I think the first time I split the ideas up I actually got around twenty chapters in total so my math is screwed up somewhere. This is going to be a really long author's note so I swapped the name to Author's Rant but in a chapter or two is the scene I have been looking forward to writing so much it is ridiculous.


	5. Shepard Finishes The Mission

In Which Shepard Finally Finishes The Mission And Pairings Are Hinted At

Warning Authors Note- I give up on this mission, may it burn in the pits of hell and be forgotten. Okay, actually I'm really looking forward to the fight with the Thorian, now to just magically write up witty dialogue. Welp, see you at the end folks, also my cat just clawed my finger. I am also not replaying the game again to see what the Thorian looks like and I have no internet while I write this. I am trying so hard not to just botch this and make it super goofy, I am trying so hard. Also fucking Mavin (Well all of Achievement Hunters) screwing over my attention span for writing right now.

Shepard stared blankly at the Thorian. Church snorted a comment in her about how it looked like some kind of burrowing plant and that Grif would try to eat it. And then replaced that with just a Grif-Is-Fat-And-Only-Eats-Bacon-Grease joke. Caboose was tilting his head at it.

"Oh. My. GOSH! It's a giant Mr. Potato head!" Caboose nearly squeals.

Church face palms at that while Shepard and Garrus laugh. The Thorian did not seem pleased with that comparison and something steps out of one of the Thorian pods. It looked like an Asari but she was green, her expression was one of extreme displeasure.

Garrus and Shepard tense reaching for their guns waiting for the Asari to speak. What seemed to be happening was a stare down of massive proportions.

"Oh my god. Just shoot her already!" Church raises the gun and fires a round at the Asari. The only thing that made the bullet actually hit it's target was the well trained muscles in Shepard's arms. Church watched the Asari stumble back from the shot and his mouth fell open before he pumped his fist. "Hell yeah!"

The Asari gritted her teeth and glared at Church. "You will pay for you insolence." The Asari started to glow with biotic energy.

Shepard raised her gun her index finger squeezing the trigger. The bullet flew from the barrel, wisps of smoke leaving the gun. The bullet hit the Asari between her eyes. Her body flying back to hit against the main body of the Thorian before falling forward, smashing face first into the ground. "I don't think I'll be paying for anything." Shepard and Church's voice mixed together as her armor started to glow faintly.

As Shepard began to move to fight the Thorian, the monstrous plants creepers began to pour from the surrounding rooms. Shepard sped forward slamming her shoulder into a creeper plowing it and several of its siblings over before swinging around to fire shots at a couple more of the Thorian Creepers. Church moved Shepard's right arm so she fired a shot at an oncoming creeper. "Garrus, cover me." Shepard took of running towards the main plant body.

Garrus nods aiming his sniper rifle at the straggling Thorian Creepers keeping them off of the commanders tail. Garrus watched Shepard's back and kept an eye on Caboose who was doing a fairly good job of not shooting anyone.

Shepard's leg muscles coiled like a spring as she jumped up to the top of the Thorian. She aimed her gun to the roots holding the heavy being up and fired rapidly. The plant shook as the roots were destroyed before crashing down. Shepard jumped off somersaulting as she reached the ground. The glow started to fade and Shepard walked towards the last pod that was breaking open.

A blue hand breaks through the pod and soon a whole body breaks out. An Asari staggers before righting herself. She looks at the bunch before opening her mouth to speak. "Thank you for saving me."

Shepard offers a smile, "It's no problem, but can I ask why you were in there?"

"I was thrown in here by Saren. I was one of the Matriarchs followers."

"Why did Saren hand over one of his own followers? He sounds like the kind of guy who would take all the attention he can get." Church says.

The Asari woman looks down, either trying to figure out how to best put her words or really unhappy about the AI who had just spoken. "He traded me for the Conduit."

"What exactly is the conduit?" Shepard pushed Church to the back of her head, now was the time for nice paragon talks and information gathering not Churchness.

"The Conduit is the Prothean way of thinking, if you want to simplify it." The Asari does a noncommittal shoulder shrug.

Shepard purses her lips. Well, it kind of made sense. Now to figure out what to do with the Asari.

The Asari seems to sense Shepards train of thought falling onto her. "The Conduit is still in my mind. I can give it to you."

Church forces his way forward, ceasing vocal control. "With that Asari mind melding thing?"

The Asari raises an eyebrow. "Yes, if you want to word it like that."

Shepard has a mental slap fight with Church. Quickly mind shooing Church to the previously unused self pity and safety corner of her brain. Now she focuses on the Asari in front of her. "I need the conduit if I'm going to stop Saren."

The Asari nods, shutting her eyes. When they open again, blackness has overtaken the majority of them. "Embrace eternity."

-

"So overall Shepard and Church had a mind three some with an Asari, which is now redeeming her sinful ways tending to a poor and sickly girl named Hope, who no one seems to know. Some girl was returned to her family and Church got angry about how long everything was taking." Tucker leans back against his chair sipping his beverage. He raises an eyebrow at all the exasperated looks he was getting.

"How in Sam's hell did you get that?" Sarge looked thoroughly confused.

Donut giggled as he looked at the two blue clad males that had returned from the mission. "I just got a lot of relationship building between Garrus and Caboose." Donut eyebrow wiggled after the statement.

Shepard curls down and rests her forehead against her hands, slowly shaking her head in exasperation. "You guys are hopeless."

Tucker snorts. "I wish I wasn't that Hope girl sounds like she puts out."

Church snaps Shepard's body back into a sitting position. "There was no girl named Hope! The colony was called Zhu's Hope! Dear god what is wrong with you!"

Tex turns to face Tucker and waggles her own eyebrows smirking. "Why are you thinking about some slutty girl who may or may not exist when you have a hot date tonight."

Tucker groans and slouches into his seat. "I hate you so much."

Tex laughs and high fives Liara. The blond turns back to face the Shepard/Church duo. "So are you two going to have Liara mind merge to see if she can decipher anything else from what that beacon showed you?"

Shepard nods. "Yeah, probably should." Shepard stands up walking towards the center of the ring of seats.

Liara walks up to the commander and her eyes swap colors. "Embrace eternity." The merge goes by quickly and Liara places a hand against her forehead, her other reaching out and balancing herself with Tex's shoulder. "That was a lot clearer."

Before anymore actually plot relevant material could be said Donut pipped up. "Shouldn't the Council be calling soon?"

Shepard raises an eyebrow, opening her mouth to question the weird thing to say.

"Commander, call from the Citadel. The Council want to hear all about you excursion. They're probably going to be upset you didn't buy them a T-shirt as a souvenir."

Shepard gazes sceptically at the ever so innocent acting Donut before shifting her weight. "Open up a channel."

"Okay, Captain." Joker opens up the channel, the holograms of the three councilors materializing. "Joker out." Joker clicks off his microphone leaving Shepard nearly alone with the three councilors.

Donut stands up to leave, blowing a kiss at the Turian councilor before swaggering out.

The Turian councilor stands half mortified, half something else that the councilor will leave up to anyone's imagination before coughing into his hand. "So you have found out more on your mission?"

Shepard nods. "We now know a bit more." Shepard opens her mouth to begin a minor tirade of nonsense anyone who has played the game vaguely knows.

A/N: First off I love you guys. Really, taking time out of your day to read and review fanfiction. Top notch people. Anyway, this is so short I'm embarrassed (500 words shorter than normal, I'm slipping) but the next chapter may be longer, it may also have some of the characters that have been requested. I was kind of planning on making this chapter longer but I don't want to make you lovely people wait any longer. So enjoy the preview chapter title. Also this is probably the first chapter you guys will have read before anyone at my house does. Huh.

Next Chapter- In Which There Is A Bunch Of Fluff And Relationships May Happen (Just not in the way you think)


	6. In Which There Is A Bunch Of Fluff

Chapter 6- In Which There Is A Bunch Of Fluff And Relationships May Happen (Just not in the way you think)

Shepard sighed as she entered her quarters. One hand slipped to the bottom of her helmet and she removed it, tossing it onto the white couch. She walked past her computer, her eyes scanning for any new messages. She unlatched more of her armor as she scanned through the new files. She shut down her computer and turned around to enter her bathroom.

Shepard smiled as she walked past the glass cage that sat right next to the bathroom door. She tapped the glass, waiting for the result.

A chubby, beige hamster ran out of the cardboard house in the middle of the wood chips. It raised itself on it's hind legs and pressed it's tiny paws against the glass. It peered around, it's eyes landing on Shepard. It jumped back and let out a human sounding squeak before running back to it's hut.

Shepard's chuckle was cut out by Church's awe. "I didn't know we had a space hamster! Why didn't you tell me?"

Shepard quirked an eyebrow at Church's, well, unchurchlyness. "I didn't think it was that important."

"Like hell it's not! I've wanted one since I was a little kid! Fuck, even Tex wanted one."

Shepard shook her head while she stepped into the bathroom. It was times like that which made having the 'ghost' in her head not quite so awkward.

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Grif groaned sitting up quickly. The Hawaiian man almost fell back down with the head rush he got. Grif rubbed the back of his head and looked around, squinting to try and see what his surrounding were like under the dim light. Grif moaned in dismay lying back down as he realized he was in a cell like room. He really didn't want to be in prison again.

Grif jumped back, his back pressing against one of the odd feeling walls, as there was an odd feeling in the back of his mind. It felt almost like when O'Malley had infested his mind for that short while. The difference was this one felt a lot more ominous then O'Malley had and not as affected by Grif's personality.

"So you finally awaken." The voice rumbles inside of Grif's mind. "You probably wish to know why you're here."

"No, I'd rather be here in the dark!" Grif spoke in a sarcastic tone one eyebrow twitching in annoyance but otherwise a look of slight fear stayed over his features.

"You are here for me to gain knowledge of your companions from. From what I can tell from you and that sorry excuse for a medic Saren has following him around you all are incompetent nobodies."

Grif frowned deeply. He wasn't going to take this from some voice in his head. The voice was pretty spot on but still, the least his probably now crazy mind could do was try to butter him up. "I have to agree with on the Doc front but fuck you."

The voice made a snorting like sound. "You humans have such eloquence."

Grif flipped off nothingness knowing the disembodied voice would get it. "Who the fuck are you anyways?"

"I am Sovereign pitiful human. One of the species you call Reapers that shall wipe yours and every other sentient species in the universe out." The voice sounded like it was growing increasingly pompous.

Grif laid back down. This was getting to be too much work, he never would have thought being kept prisoner by aliens would be so draining. "Eh, not the first time someone's threatened to wipe humans out. Nobody has succeeded yet."

Sovereign chuckled inside of Grif's mind again. The vibrations creating a slight headache inside of the humans head. "No species has survived the Reapers since the beginning of time, and none shale."

Grif snorted rolling over. "Then you don't know how persistent humans fucking are. We're the the galactic cockroaches."

Sovereign seemed unimpressed by Grif's nonchalant demeanor which he was falsely identifying as bravado rather than just simple laziness. Sovereign would have snarled if that wouldn't have been unprofessional and probably just made the annoying human laugh. "Stop stalling human and tell me the information on your friends."

Grif shuffled his face further into his pillow and groaned. "I barely consider then friends, I mean Simmons is a geek, Donut is more like a weird sister, Sarge is fucking Sarge, and the Blue's are just the Blue's." Grif then nuzzled his face into his crossed arms.

"So you fought before by who had which color? You do not sound like you had a very well balanced team."

Grif snorted in derision at Sovereign's statement. "Dude, we didn't even have a well balanced diet."

"So will you continue to be a nuisance or will we have to do this the hard way."

"Fuck you." Grif rolls onto his other side covering his ears with his pillow.

There was the sound of metal sliding across metal. Grif looked up to wince as wire like appendages extended from the walls. Grif stared wide eyed as Sovereign laughed in his head.

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Garrus sat at one of the mess hall tables. He munched on his food watching Caboose as he happily shoveled cookies into his mouth. Garrus smiled at the sight, giving a slight chuckle before shacking his head looking back at his food.

Tex looked over before gazing back at Liara and wiggling her eyebrows at the other woman. Liara didn't look impressed by this and nearly face palmed as Tex made an obscene gesture with her thumb and index finger positioned into a circle and her other hands index finger going in and out of that hole. Liara felt a blush rush to her cheeks as Caboose looks over curious.

Liara let the urge to bury her face into her hands. "Please stop that Allison."

Tex laughed at Liara's flushed face before reclining in her chair shrugging. "Fine, I'll stop teasing."

Liara sighed a hand resting against her chest in relief. This ship was definitely getting a lot rowdier. With all of Church and Shepard's lovers quarrels going on, Officer Hot Pants, Tucker's fail courting of Joker who would announce their date plans over the ships speakers, and the infernal poker nights it was quite a lot for the young Asari.

On the other end of the table Garrus looked quizzically at Caboose. Garrus shifted in his seat before coughing into his hand. "Where did you learn to shoot?"

The question hung in the air for a couple seconds before Caboose stopped his munching and looked straight at Garrus. "Boot camp, my instructor was very nice." Caboose's voice was very matter-o-fact.

"How long ago was boot camp?"

Caboose tilted his head to the side thinking before counting on his fingers and holding up four fingers. "This many."

Garrus stared at the cheery face Caboose was making before shacking his head at it. "It's probably time to freshen up on your shooting skills."

Caboose looked confused. "Tex never has new classes."

Garrus quickly comes up with an excuse. "That's because Tex is always shooting something or enacting violence on unsuspecting kittens."

Caboose nodded excepting the excuse with a grim expression. "I do not like kittens, and that is why I like Mrs. McCrabby."

Garrus let out a snort before covering his mouth at the nickname. He looked over at Tex trying not to burst out laughing.

Tex sneered at him unhappily. "It's better than Mr. Kittenface."

Garrus resisted the urge to act childishly and turned back to Caboose. "Well how about we go to the practice range and I can freshen up anything you've forgotten."

Caboose nods standing up and following Garrus down the corridors until they reached the practice range. There were a series of guns and a doorway with 'Simulation Chamber' written above it. The room slightly confused Caboose as Garrus set a pistol into his hand. Caboose stepped towards one of the lanes and raised the small firearm towards the target. He let off a couple rounds. Everyone hit in the general area around the target, not anywhere bad like Garrus' face.

Garrus nodded wondering why on the battle field most of his shots ended up near his team mates. "That's pretty good now watch me." Garrus took another pistol walking up to another lane and getting into proper firing position and fired off four rounds, every round hitting dead on. Garrus stepped aside for Caboose to step up.

Caboose stepped up, setting his feet into what he hoped was the right spot and adjusting his shoulders.

Garrus stepped behind him and tapped the inside of Caboose's elbows to get him to relax them before moving the blonde's shoulders. His hands ran down Caboose's biceps trailing down to his hands to aim the gun still in Caboose's hands. "Okay, now fire."

Caboose pulled the trigger the round hit dead on. Caboose fired a few more shots before he felt Garrus nod. The blue rookie lowered his gun and turned to face Garrus. "Is my training over yet?"

Garrus shook his head. "Not until we go through some simulation routines."

Caboose followed Garrus into the doorway with the 'Simulation Chamber' written above it. Once inside Caboose eyes widened as lights flickered and a typical frigate's storage bay appeared around them. Caboose took a step closer to Garrus, startled by the new environment.

Garrus put a hand on Caboose's shoulder to calm him down. "Don't worry it's just a simulation. We're going to have to take down ten targets without getting hit two times each." With that there was a buzz and holographic figures appeared firing shots at them.

Garrus and Caboose quickly fell into cover. The turian let out a couple rounds taking out two of the holograms. Garrus looked over to Caboose who was holding his own, but his eyes kept flicking to Garrus every couple seconds.

Caboose's gaze stayed for a couple seconds after Garrus started paying attention to the holograms again. Caboose managed to shoot another hologram before his gun pointed were he was watching, which was Garrus' back and after Garrus told him to shoot Caboose pulled the trigger. This series of events led to Caboose shooting Garrus in the back.

With that startling Garrus a hologram shot Garrus twice. As Garrus freaked out slightly Caboose jumped up to apologize, also getting shot. The simulation room beeped and the holographic room unloaded.

Garrus turned to Caboose with a confused look. "Why did you shoot me?"

Caboose eyebrows were scrunched together and his mouth was in a slight frown. "I don't know, I was watching your back and you told me to shoot so I did but I was watching your back so that's were I shot."

Garrus blinked, thoroughly confused. "Why were you watching my back?"

Caboose's face turned more determined and he let out a stiff nod before speaking. "My drill Sargent told us to always watch each others backs, especially in battle situations."

Garrus let out a sigh, one hand finding it's way to his forehead. "You don't literally stare at the persons back. You make sure no one sneaks up behind them or shoots them."

Caboose's mouth formed an 'o' and he nodded. "I always thought it was because backs secretly want to kill the people they are attached to. Now I know that was a silly thought." Caboose smiled at Garrus nodding.

Garrus smiled back walking with Caboose out of the room. "Now how about we go get some rocky road from Grif's stash."

Caboose's smile widened at that and nodded. "We will also not get caught since I have not seen Gruff for a while."

Garrus let out a pondering look before shrugging. The red soldier was probably just hibernating somewhere. It wasn't like he was taken hostage by the enemy or anything.

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Simmons sat across from Tali in a far corner of the cargo bay. Somewhere were he hoped no one would interrupt their lovely dinner he had so lovingly cooked. It was kind of difficult trying to figure out how to make food for a Quarian but for Tali he would do anything, as cheesy as that sounded. Besides the woman in front of him was very happy with the gesture.

Tali sat eating her food wondering how long it would take Shepard to interrupt their date. Tali sighed as a very excited Shepard rushed in right in the middle of Simmons' telling an interesting Blood Gulch story. Shepard had been a lot more... excited ever since she had mind melded with Church. It was funny most of the time but now it was just kind of annoying.

Shepard had a giddy smile on her face as her eyes flashed between the two. "We have a mission! Get your armor on Simmons so we can go!"

Simmons sighed looking at the food he would never finish. Grif would probably leave whatever hole he had been hiding in to eat it. Stupid, lazy fatass.

Tali shrugged sheepishly at him standing up and pulling his chair out for him to stand up. She laughed at his unimpressed expression at Tali doing the usual chivalrous male things.

Within ten minutes the two along with Shepard and Tucker were in the Mako falling out of the sky to land on some really unremarkable planet. Tali laughing as Simmons clung onto her screaming as they fell the whole car shaking as it hit the ground.

The Mako took off before the shaking even stopped. Shepard humming along to some up beat kind of creepy song on the radio, occasionally looking at the radar map on the dashboard. Finally they come to some underground base you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it. Shepard unbuckled and stepped out of the Mako. "Come on everyone times a-wasting. Let's go take care of these mercenaries."

So Simmons followed everyone into the base. The mission was quickly handled. Tali was very talented with a shot gun and everyone generally had a good sense of team work which was something Simmons had never really experienced.

Shepard looted some things and nodded as she read a data pad. "Looks like we're going to Citadel after our next mission."

With that they left to go back into the Mako. Several mineral deposits later and one raided satellite probe Shepard picked up a mystery signal. Simmons groaned at the extended trip, they could have left fifteen minutes ago but no, Shepard had to go check everything Church egging her on to raid everything.

As Shepard pulled towards the signal a familiar engine rumble filled the air. Shepard's eyes narrowed as a dark colored vehicle pulled along side the Mako. The engine roared and Shepard revved the Mako's engine back. At once both vehicles slammed into motion, everyone inside the Mako was thrown around.

Both vehicles rounded a turn, Tali slammed into Simmons side as they were thrown around the back. Shepard cackled as she pressed down harder on the gas the Mako's engine roaring. The other vehicle was pulling ahead as the finish line neared. Shepard leaned forward in her seat and pulled ahead the Mako beating the other vehicle. Shepard's hands flew from the wheel and she let out a whoop in victory the Mako spinning at the lack of hands on the steering wheel.

As the Mako slowed to a stop Simmons fell out of the Mako one hand tightened over his mouth as he tried not to hurl. His eyes snapped up as he noticed the other vehicle. It was very familiar and Simmons jumped up in surprise before his surprise melted into a look of confusion. "Why is the Warthog here?"

Tali swaggered over putting an arm around Simmons. "So this is the much rumored Warthog?"

Simmons nodded putting his own arm around Tali's waist. Simmons gapped when he realized who had been driving the Warthog.

"Honk honk blargh!" A high pitched alien voice came from the drivers seat.

Tucker was out of the Mako before anyone could mention the weird, tiny alien in the Warthog. "Junior!" Tucker ran over scooping the alien out of the Mako hugging him tightly. Junior now was quite a bit bigger than when Simmons had last seen him but still small enough Tucker could still hold him up with a bit of ease.

"Blargh!" That sounded a bit like 'You're embarrassing me, dad!'.

Tucker just laughed and smiled like the alien in his arms was the most adorable thing ever, which it was, agree or Tucker will shank you. "How in the world did you get here? And answer in English."

"Honk." Junior's honk was incredulous as he stared blankly at his parent.

Tali laughed at the sight before walking over to examine the Warthog. She was intent at looking over the driver coils and doing regular check up things like checking the oil. Tali looked over her shoulder as she felt a gaze on her shoulder.

"Un pepetri mas otre vez."* The mechanical Spanish voice belonged to a man clad in similar armor to the the reds and blues wore except his was brown.

"Oh, hello." Tali regarded the man slowly. He appeared to actually be a robot which made her slightly uneasy, you never know when you're going to have another Geth.

"Agua libro grazias."** The Spanish robot leaned against the Warthog next to Tali.

The Quarian was kind of confused about what he was saying so she let out a slight laugh.

Simmons stared as Lopez appeared to hit on Tali. There was no way that mechanical menace was going to hit on his girlfriend. The maroon armored man walked over and stood angrily next to Tali.

Tali turned towards Simmons and moved her hand to his letting out a content hum. She rested her back against the Warthog and leaned towards Simmons.

"Para pastor mara papier?"*** Lopez nodded his head at Simmons.

"We've been dating since he helped me with some driver coils." Tali shrugged nonchalantly.

Shepard coughed into her hand interrupting all the reunions and meetings going on. "Can we move along please? I have important things to do."

Simmons groaned at the Commanders mood swings. At least he could spend more time with Tali, and get away from the robot who he was pretty sure didn't like him at all.

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Doc was almost skipping as he dragged Saren into the research facilities kitchen. Doc was far happier now that he was off that freaky ship, it had been giving him weird headaches that even his usual techniques for migraine removal wouldn't even work. So now that he could spend some pain free time baking was great, especially since he could force Saren to do something more productive than taking over the universe. Something like baking chocolate chip cookies.

Doc frowned as Saren just let out a very unimpressed frown over Doc's idea of baking. It was a great idea, cookies were great and not evil. Saren's frown hadn't left since Doc first proposed the idea which probably would have been a sign that would make Doc not want to be so aggressive as to make someone help with something but Saren was always frowning so it wouldn't matter much.

Doc chose to ignore Saren for the most part and scour the kitchen for the proper supplies. After searching several cupboards and the fridge he collected the needed supplies. Everything lay out over the counter. Doc quickly went to work dividing everything into the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients.

Saren just watched Doc flit about the kitchen. It wasn't like he was really going to help the medic do something so childish. He just had to keep an eye one him, or he really just wanted to keep an eye on him. He didn't really care which was the case. Saren was snapping from his thoughts as Doc set a bowl next to him with butter and sugar in it and a latex spatula sticking out of the fatty substance.

Doc walked over to a different bowl. "You can start by mixing together the butter and sugar, when they're mixed together enough add the eggs and vanilla."

The medic's slight authoritative tone made Saren go along with it. Who would care if he spent some time baking? It was apparently a legitimate pass time.

So the two spent ten minutes working before the kitchen somehow turned into a war zone. The flour bag had ripped coating everything in a fine white powder and milk had gotten poured all over the floor.

Saren looked over at Doc who had gotten batter all over his shirt. Saren let out a short laugh and Doc glared at him sticking his tongue out. Saren smirked at the childish displace before stepping forward. Saren leaned down before Doc could stick his tongue back in his mouth a licked the extended appendage.

Doc's tongue immediately retracted in shock. Doc's mouth opened and closed and Saren could see the smoke emitting from Doc's brain as he tried to understand the situation. Suddenly Doc started to fall over his brain shutting down. Saren sighed and caught the medic, just like him to faint over something like that.

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Two men sat gruffly drinking whiskey in the cargo bay. Both men had war ravaged faces, well one had war ravaged the other had simulation war ravaged, actually really neither was war ravaged but it sounded good. The one who had actual been to war was a Krogan and the other simulation one was a man in red armor.

Wrex scanned the room, his gaze scanning over everything in the steadily crowding room. Wrex watched as Tali kept getting lost in the piles of junk trying to get to the elevator from the engine room which should have been easy. "Ever since we got that jeep it's been too crowded down here."

Sarge snorted. "It's because of that pile of junk 'all-terrain vehicle' of yours, the Warthog is a great vehicle."

Wrex snorted back in derision. "The Mako's a top of the line vehicle what can that scrap pile of a jeep do."

Sarge took another shot of whiskey before moving to get a better talking vantage point. "That 'scrap pile jeep' has saved my life more times than I can count, and nearly killed me a couple times. Eh, the little rascal. Once we drove this thing through a mine field, no one died, sadly."

"We have driven the Mako through a Geth strong hold without having any hull damage." Wrex stared down Sarge waiting for him to try and top his story.

"Once we plowed through a wall and took down a member of the best soldier groups with the Warthog. It also has remote controls! Ha! Top that story." Sarge crossed his arms not expecting a reply.

"Once back in my mercenary days I shot a cruiser with one rocket and it crashed down. The ship ended up landing, without breaking the dumpster, in a dumpster." Wrex smirked at the other male, top that story.

"One of my soldiers was so stupid he thought headlight fluid was an actual thing and that our enemy base was a store. It would have been a sad end for that soldier if the other teams idiot hadn't been the only one inside the base and gave him their flag. Hehehe, that silly Donut." Sarge whipped a nonexistent tear from the side of his eye, Wrex laughed along at the story.

The two quieted down and they both stared at their glasses for a bit. The only noise was Tali ramming her shins into stuff by accident. They both looked up at the same time. Neither said a word before they both lunged over the table and started to vigorously make out. Tali in the back ground pulled out a camera and started taking pictures before falling over a pile of junk.

A/N: So is anyone happy with the length? This took forever to write, I ended up typing out a plan for every little thing that would happen to keep on track and just to write the dumb scenes. I don't know how I feel about all these scenes but I feel slightly better about the shooting scene since I ended up rewriting that part. Also the Simmons/Tali wasn't really planned but it worked, yay shipping! Next chapter will involve the next actual mission, which will probably be nothing like the actual mission since I'm too lazy to actual figure out every detail of the mission. Also, everyone stop guessing stuff you're guessing(well more requesting future stuff) that I already have planned, jerks. Not really keep doing whatever you've been doing. So have a nice week or two before I get the next chapter out.

Lopez Translations-  
* Lopez Lopez Lopez; Lopez.  
** Furthermore Lopez Lopez (or water book thank you; heavily misspelled)  
*** Spanish? No, these things I am vocalizing are really just some random letters crammed together to form the semblance of a language, Lopez.


End file.
